Snails in my aquarium, how to get rid of them?

The origin of snails that appear in an aquarium

Snails are generally unbearable inhabitants that are disliked for their presence in an aquarium. Upon spotting a colony of snails in their aquariums, many aquarium enthusiasts tend to wonder about their origins. Whether snails or their eggs, they enter an aquarium through the introduction of new elements into an aquarium.

These new elements include live plants, decorative objects, gravel, nets used to transfer fish from one aquarium to another… In short, snail larvae cling to these elements and eventually reproduce in an aquarium.

Apart from carefully treating all these elements with an anti-snail product before introducing them, it is almost impossible to prevent the introduction of a few larvae that will multiply once they reach adulthood. Snail invasions are therefore very common in aquarium keeping.

Indeed, snail larvae are almost undetectable and a single snail is more than enough to create several. Snails reproduce very quickly and are therefore capable of quickly invading an aquarium. You will then need time and effort to get rid of them.

The presence of snails in an aquarium, is it a good or a bad thing?

It is legitimate for an aquarium enthusiast to wonder whether the appearance of snails will be dangerous or not for the balance of their aquarium. In smaller quantities, these mollusks can contribute to the proper functioning of an aquarium.

Snails have a reputation for being very effective against waste because they feed on it. In your aquarium, they will thus limit pollution by eating excess food, algae, waste, dead plants, dead fish… Also, the presence of snails is an excellent indicator of the condition of an aquarium. In short, their rapid reproduction indicates the presence of a large amount of organic waste resulting from overfeeding the fish.

You must then act before this pollution impacts your fish. Similarly, snails may suddenly start dying in large numbers or move to the surface. In this case, you must understand that there is pollution, poor oxygenation, a major imbalance, unsuitable parameters… in your aquarium. You must then act quickly before your fish suffer from these same problems.

The best tips to get rid of snails in your aquarium

Keeping a small number of snails with fish can be very useful. However, it is very clear that it is preferable for an aquarium enthusiast to have an aquarium without snails, because beware of their invasion. Here are the solutions we offer to get rid of snails in your aquarium.

It is still recommended to test the water of your aquarium before trying to eradicate snails. For good reason, the presence of snails must have an origin. This test will allow you to determine if the water has no problems.

Avoid overfeeding

Overfeeding the fish can cause the number of snails in your aquarium to explode. You must therefore make sure to feed your fish moderately.

In short, simply feed your fish with the sufficient amount of food each time. You will thus assess after a few days whether this technique manages to solve the problem of snail overpopulation in your aquarium.

Introduce snail-eating predators into your aquarium

This method clearly stands out as the easiest if you want to get rid of snails in your aquarium. You can then simply introduce snail-eating fish into your aquarium.

These fish will notably aim to eat the snails. The most recommended fish species for this mission are: loaches, loach cats, danios, clown loaches… Also, to remove snails you can introduce a snail-eating snail into your aquarium such as the Helena Nerite snail. This snail-eating snail generally proves to be very useful.

However, you must be careful in selecting the fish species marketed as snail eaters. For good reason, snail-eating fish such as gouramis or balloon fish are aggressive and will therefore end up attacking the fauna of your aquarium.

Remove snails from your aquarium by hand

You have the option of manually removing snails from your aquarium or crushing them. The majority of the fish in your aquarium will feed on the remains of these snails. However, this method takes time to be effective and it will be impossible to eliminate all the snails by applying it.

For good reason, if the snail invasion is large you will have a tedious job to do. Also, this method will not allow you to eliminate the larvae and the snails will continue to develop.

Use chemical products to kill snails

Copper sulfate remains the chemical product that is safe for fish and is commonly used to exterminate snails. However, you should know that the use of chemical products to remove snails from an aquarium is strongly discouraged. You must therefore be sure that the chemical products will not be toxic to the fish before using them.

In addition, the use of chemical products will cause the sudden death of all the snails that you will be forced to remove from your aquarium. The corpses of dead snails can thus pollute the water of your aquarium while increasing the nitrite concentrations in the water. On the other hand, chemical products can effectively kill larvae.

Completely clean your aquarium

Generally, this method is used as a last resort. Also, aquarium enthusiasts do not particularly like it. This method consists of keeping the fish in another aquarium in order to completely clean the aquarium fouled by snails.

You must then clean without exception all the elements of the aquarium fouled by snails as well as the aquarium itself. For good reason, snail eggs can end up anywhere. You will then have to dry all the cleaned elements and perform a redesign of your aquarium.

Place snail traps in your aquarium

Among all the methods intended to eradicate the presence of snails in an aquarium, this last one is the one that combines simplicity and efficiency. One of these traps consists of placing lettuce leaves under an upside-down plate when you turn off the light in your aquarium. The snails will migrate to the plate during the night.

The next morning, you will only have to remove the plate with the clinging snails. By proceeding this way for a few nights in a row, you are sure to get rid of a very large number of snails in your aquarium. However, you will find the best snail traps for aquariums on the internet or in pet stores. JBL LimCollect is notably one of these snail traps for aquariums that we recommend on foudebassin. JBL LimCollect is a multi-purpose trap that will allow you to capture unwanted invaders such as snails, shrimp, and crustaceans that invite themselves into your aquarium.

The snail trap JBL LimCollect is chemical-free, harmless, and easy to use. This trap is designed to maintain an excellent water flow in all situations. You therefore have the guarantee that an accidentally captured fish will never lack oxygen. JBL LimCollect simply represents the ideal tool you need if you want to remove snails from your aquarium safely and effectively.

Which snails proliferate in an aquarium?

Not all snails cause problems. Some, like the mystery snail sold in pet stores, are pleasant additions to an aquarium and do not multiply easily. Other species, on the other other hand, can reproduce quickly and invade an aquarium without even being invited: pond snails (bladder snails, ramshorn snails), horned snails (planorbis), and trumpet snails (melanoid).

These small snails arrive most often on plants, in adult form or in the form of eggs, but also with the water from the transport bag when buying a new fish. A single stray snail or two or three eggs are enough for a population to settle in your aquarium.

Prevent a new snail invasion

Once your aquarium is free of snails, help it stay that way by taking a few precautions with each addition of a new component:

• New fish: do not pour the water from the transport bag into the aquarium, transfer only the fish.
• New plants: before installing them, inspect them and soak them in a treatment bath, for example based on alum or potassium permanganate, then rinse them.
• Food: continue to dose the meals as precisely as possible, because food scraps feed the proliferation of snails.

In case of a new proliferation, find our snail traps for freshwater aquariums.